Never judge a book by its cover is usually a good idea. And it was a good one for Akim Aliu: Dreamer (Original Graphic Memoir). I figured it would be a story about how one young man became a hockey superstar despite the odds and be a bit cliché with how race plays a part. Yet, while it talks about race and racism, and is the focus, there is more to things than that. Of course, as said, that is a central piece but Alui presented his life in a way that was new and put a perspective on things in ways I hadn’t seen before. He shows us the world and his pieces of it. It shows how people in the world of hockey could be “sneaky” about racism, prejudices and how people covered it up. Sadly, we might have been talking about hockey, but it was a slice of the bigger puzzle. Aliu’s journey is familiar and unique by dealing with the issues he did, we see things we unfortuatnly know are too common, but also he is a Ukrainian-Nigerian-Canadian professional hockey player, which is not seen every day. The authors and illustrator Aliu, Karen De La Bega, Marcus Williams and Greg Anderson Elysee,) created a straightforward, fourth wall breaking story of a young man’s journey into the world of Canadian hockey, the NHL and finally learning who he is and how he can help others.
The journey from a young man born in Africa, who moved to the Ukraine and finally moved to Canada is a typical immigration story, also fresh. Aliu would have to deal with many obstacles, even within his own family he had to overcome things like a brother saying, “People like us don’t play hockey” and his parents working multiple jobs to not just put food on the table and clothes on their backs, but allowing the boys to play their respective sports. Even having a grandfather who would not hold his oldest grandson (Aliu’s older brother) for almost a year after he was born. Yet, not everything was bad, there are many positive and hopeful pieces as well.
Everything unfolds in traditional, glossy graphic novel colored and detailed pages. Language that are slurs or “less than ideal” are blurred out in the word bubbles, or edited so you know what it is, but you never see it completely. The artwork is not overwhelming, but sometimes a bit repetitive for me as an adult reader. But the middle grade reader will be excited. Even if you are not into hockey this is a great book as it is not a sports book, but a coming of age story.